


we deserve a soft epilogue

by swordgay



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Amnesiac Doug Eiffel, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, eiffel does not, essentially: jacobi remembers they used to fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:18:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16531751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordgay/pseuds/swordgay
Summary: "Daniel has this young and naive look to him still, even if Doug’s pretty sure his innocence was shattered decades ago. He looks impossible, like he’s still light years away despite being right in front of Doug."Daniel's not sure how to bring up the fact they used to sleep together, so he doesn't.





	we deserve a soft epilogue

When the Urania lands at Canaveral, Doug is lost. 

 

Everyone around him’s talking about debriefing and mission control and command, and despite the fact Renée briefed him on their return flight, he still has trouble coming to terms with it all.

 

A few days later there’s a room, soundproof and equipped with all the latest tech, and he’s sitting around the table with everyone—well, except Hera’s not really sitting but listening in from the room’s speakers. There’s a room, and Renée and Isabel are discussing damages and making threats to the very nice people in the suits sitting across from them. Daniel, as usual, refuses to even meet Doug’s eye when it’s clear neither of them are paying that much attention. There’s a room and Doug wonders what Daniel Jacobi’s problem is. 

 

Renée makes a point of having them meet for pizza every week, but for the first few months Isabel’s off travelling the world somewhere so it’s just the three of them plus Hera, and Doug gets into arguments with Renée about whether or not anchovies belong on pizza (they don’t). It’s good, if he forgets the fact he should already know what Hawaiian pizza tastes like when they order it for the first time. 

“Who invented this?” He asks when he opens the box. 

“Someone who wanted to watch the world burn,” Renée tells him as she picks up a slice for herself. “It’s still good, though. Jac— Daniel, can you pass me the hot sauce?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

His tone is flat and when Doug turns to look at him he notices he’s watching him almost expectantly, like he thinks Doug will have a certain opinion. Doug sighs.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Daniel just shrugs.  

This is how most of their interactions go, these days, and when Renée’s in the room she’ll give Daniel a look Doug can’t quite read, like there’s something they both know but won’t tell him— it drives him up the wall, but he doesn’t push it. 

 

He knows how hard it must be for his…friends? Colleagues? He’s not sure what they are, but he knows they’re uncomfortable, can see it in even Renée’s face despite her best efforts. Unlike him, they remember Doug Eiffel before the brain wipe, the Doug who’d have opinions on everything from toothpaste to obscure pop culture things. And he’s listened to the tapes, tried to know the old Doug, but, well. It’s complicated. There are tapes where he only understands every six words or so, and others…others where he can tell his old self purposefully left things out. 

 

Regardless, Doug tries and takes it one day at a time, and eventually one day at a time gets him to a year since they came back to Earth. Renée insists on throwing a small celebration with a cake and some board games. They blow the candles on it, too, and even Hera makes a blowing sound. 

“To our new lives,” Isabel cheers with a mouth full of chocolate sponge. 

 

Later, they sit in the living room with Isabel and Renée on the couch and Daniel and Doug on the floor — it’s been like this ever since they came back — talking about what they’ve enjoyed most since they came back.  

“Mine’s stupid,” Daniel tells them with a beer in his hand. 

Isabel pokes him in the side with her foot. “Oh, come on!”  

“Ow!” Daniel yelps. “Fine, just— Jesus. I like that people call me by my first name and not just Jacobi anymore. Feels more human.” 

He takes a swig of his beer before he adds, “Any day where I don’t have to hear some asshole call me ‘Mr Jacobi’ is great in my book.” 

Doug gives Renée a look. Even though he’s mostly up to speed with pop culture and world events by now, this is what frustrates him the most. Sometimes one of them will bring up an event he knows the details of, but he can’t remember happening, and it feels out of his grasp somehow, like Hera could tell him about the mission a hundred times and he still wouldn’t quite comprehend it because he can’t remember being _there_. Renée subtly shakes her head at him, saying _don’t push it_ with her eyes. 

 

He does push it in the end, but not until it’s just him and Renée washing dishes in the kitchen while Daniel and Isabel play video games in the living room.

“What’s Daniel’s deal?” he asks while wiping a plate. 

Renée pauses and stops washing dishes, sighing. “You should talk to him. It’s not for me to say.” 

“I don’t think he’s spoken a full sentence to me since we all got back. Say, before— I didn’t— do anything to make him hate me, did I?”

“Doug,” she takes the plate from his hand and shakes her head, “seriously. Talk to him.” 

“Fine, but if he tries to blow me up I’m sending you the hospital bill.” 

 

He kind of forgets about the whole conversation — until it’s his turn to host the weekly pizza night at his apartment and Isabel and Renée both bail, that is. He suspects they did it on purpose when Renée texts him to ask if Daniel’s there yet before she excuses herself. 

“Uh,” he starts after he lets Daniel in, unsure of where to go with this. “Isabel and Renée aren’t coming, so—“ 

He’s shifting his weight from one foot to the other while Daniel looks at him with wide eyes. Out of what he can remember, this definitely makes his top ten uncomfortable moments.  

“Right. I guess I’ll get home, then.” 

His shitty kitchen light washes Daniel’s undercut in golden hues at the tips, and Doug somehow can’t stop looking at him. Despite the scars on his face and burnt patch of skin on his neck, Daniel has this young and naive look to him still, even if Doug’s pretty sure his innocence was shattered decades ago. He looks impossible, like he’s still light years away despite being right in front of Doug. And really, it can’t hurt to ask if he’s impossible, right? 

“Why do you hate me so much?” It comes out harsher than Doug thought it would in his head, more blunt than what he thought he’d say to him, and he almost regrets it until he sees Daniel’s eyes widen even more. 

“I…don’t,” Daniel enunciates the words slowly, slower than Doug’s ever heard him talk. 

“Then why do you never talk to me? Did I do something when we were up there?” 

Daniel scoffs and shakes his head before two calloused and scarred hands come up to rub at his own face, like Doug just asked him if the sky is blue or if pigs fly.

“Look, this might be real funny to you, but I’m a blank slate over here,” Doug gestures at himself loosely. “So please, do fill me in.” 

“I think you should sit,” is all Daniel says in return. 

Doug doesn’t really get what could be so awful he’d need to sit them down for — after all, he already knows about the explosions and the murderous bosses, what could be worse than that — but he sits anyway, with a safe distance between the two of them on the couch. Daniel doesn’t look at him.

“Spill it out then, dude. It can’t be _that bad_. I mean, you’re friends with Isabel and Renée, and you guys tried to murder each other a bunch of times.” 

“It’s not that easy. This is different. I thought— I thought this would be on your tapes.” 

He still doesn’t look at him. 

“Yeah, no. Not unless you’re mad about me calling you Dan the Explosion Man on them.” 

Daniel finally turns to look at him then, squinting. “You called me that in private?!” 

“I don’t think that’s the point here, but yeah, apparently.”

“If it’s not on your tapes, then—“ Something clicks together for Daniel then, behind his stupidly big brown eyes. “Oh. You really don’t know.”  

Doug shakes his head no.

“On the Hephaestus, we, uh. We were…” Daniel clears his throat. “You and me. For a while.” 

“Oh,” is all Doug can say, mirroring Daniel. 

It’s not that he doesn’t get it. Daniel’s not bad looking at all underneath his rough exterior, and Doug did learn about his two ex boyfriends when trying to piece his past together. It’s just that the care Daniel has put into avoiding him in the last year hadn’t exactly screamed ‘in love’. 

“We’re a fucking mess,” Daniel laughs, relaxing into the couch. “I thought you knew because it was on your tapes, and you regretted it so you chose to ignore it.” 

“And I thought you hated me.” 

“Quite the opposite, actually.” 

He’s sprawled out on his couch, his arms on the back of it, and Doug can see why his past self went for him; tattoos poke out of his t-shirt sleeves in intricate patterns and flames all the way down to his hands and if he’s honest, it’s pretty attractive. 

“What were we exactly? Like, was it just sex, or…” Doug nervously runs a hand through his hair. It’s getting long— he hasn’t cut it since they came back. 

“I’m not really sure,” Daniel answers him tentatively. “I think it was becoming more, but then everything kind of…went to shit. Well, you know. You’ve read the files.” 

Doug nods, because he has, but the files didn’t mention this. Neither did Hera when she talked him through the reports, and he _knows_ that she knows. The files never mentioned him and Daniel…Him and Daniel. He understands then why Daniel spent the better part of a year avoiding him. 

“So what do we do now?” He asks sincerely, because, well, he doesn’t remember how to do the whole romance thing anymore. 

“Depends. What do you want to do?” 

Doug’s hand finds Daniel’s on the back of the couch, and Doug can feel the scars that run along his fingers. It’s strange, but something almost like muscle memory has his thumb circle one of them almost automatically. The headlights from cars outside dance across Daniel’s face, painting him in blues and whites and greens like an impressionist painting and Doug’s stomach turns. 

He looks into Daniel’s eyes and he _wants_. 

It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt yet, not in this new life, and it’s comfortable and warm and only a little disgusting in his gut.

At some point he must have shifted because he’s closer to Daniel now, enough that his hand rests on his shoulder instead of holding Daniel’s hand. 

“Can I kiss you?” Daniel asks him, barely louder than a whisper. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. He’s okay with this being his first kiss in this life, he thinks. 

Daniel’s lips are impossibly soft and slow against his own, like he doesn’t want to hurt him or break him, and Doug makes a noise. If his brain doesn’t remember when they used to do this, his body most certainly does, every single one of his nerve endings alight. 

 

Sometime between kisses, Daniel makes a remark about kissing being a lot easier on solid ground than in Zero G, and Doug laughs and kisses him again. They’re still on the couch, with Daniel’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and his other hand resting on his waist, and this makes sense, somehow. 

Doug starts spending more and more time with Daniel after that night, playing video games and watching movies and sometimes just sitting there in silence. It’s not perfect by any means—sometimes Daniel will clam up after Doug accidentally says something that reminds him of _someone_ , his eyes growing dark, and sometimes they’ll spend a day arguing about whether or not Daniel deserves him. But Doug supposes that’s how relationships go. 

 

Things get _serious_ on the day Doug least expects them to. 

They’re taking a walk in some nondescript part of town, and taking walks is one of Doug’s favourite things to do with him because neither of them really know the city that well so they’re on an even playing field, for once. Anyway, they’re walking hand in hand with overpriced takeout coffees when the sky starts fucking pouring without warning, soaking them within minutes.  

“Shit,” Daniel says first, then “ha, you look funny with your hair all wet. Hey, don’t you roll your eyes at me— it’s cute.” 

 Doug leans in to kiss him quiet but it’s so wet and cold it’s not a great kiss. Oh god, kissing in the rain is totally overrated and not as romantic as he expected. 

“We should probably go home and get dry,” he tells him, taking Daniel’s wet hand.

 

So they do, and by the time they reach Daniel’s apartment they’re both absolutely drenched; their clothes are dripping and quickly making two small puddles on Daniel’s floor. 

“Well shit,” Doug says, “I’ll be surprised if we don’t catch pneumonia at this rate.” 

“You don’t catch pneumonia from being in the rain, you idiot,” Daniel calls behind him as he tosses his keys in a bowl and runs to close a window he left open.  

Doug’s not sure he should soak his floor even more by following him, so he kind of hovers awkwardly in the doorway, shirt transparent with water. “Jerk,” he tells Daniel playfully, a low laughter from the living room assuring him he heard.  

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Daniel tells him when he comes back. “You can shower here too, if you want. I can lend you clothes.” 

Doug pauses. Since they started doing…whatever it is they’re doing, they haven’t crossed the figurative line of sleeping over, instead always leaving in the evening with a kiss goodnight, and unless Daniel plans on sending him back out in the storm, this is probably what he’s getting at. Doug swallows his uncertainty the best he can, tells himself he’s nearly thirty-five, god damn it, that this shouldn’t be so hard.

“Yeah,” he tells Daniel, and the smile he gets in return is more than worth it.

Doug Eiffel learns two things that evening: one, that Daniel takes stupidly long showers, and two, that he doesn’t own a shower curtain.  

He finds out about the latter when he realises he should probably get a towel to wrap around his head so his hair stops dripping everywhere and Daniel tells him through the bathroom door that he can come in and grab one. 

It’s not that he’s never seen another man naked that stops him in his tracks. (Well, he hasn’t in this life, technically, but he’s watched his fair share of porn since he came back, and that counts, right?) It’s the fact Daniel’s body is perfect and he’s covered in beauty marks and freckles and there’s a scar shaped like a bullet hole on his right hip. 

Doug stands there, frozen, until Daniel breaks the silence. 

“Well, that’s the first time I’ve rendered someone speechless. I’m flattered.” 

“I…You’re beautiful,” is all Doug manages to say. It’s cliché, but Daniel cheeks go redder than they should under the hot water. 

“Towels are in there,” Daniel gestures to the cabinet under the sink. “Unless…?” 

He’s giving him an out, and Doug is grateful for it, but he’s starting to get seriously cold now and Daniel looks so good with droplets of hot water all over him, and God, he wants this. 

Even if he knows Daniel’s seen him naked before, he’s still slow to shed his clothes; they join Daniel’s on the floor eventually, though, and Doug is naked under the water before he knows it, sighing at the warmth. 

“Hi,” Daniel tells him before he kisses him until his back hits the tile. 

They’re standing so close their legs are tangled together and they’re all up in each other’s space, but Daniel still asks if he can touch him, eyes full of care and something that might just be affection.

“Please,” Doug breathes, and when Daniel’s hand wraps around his dick he nearly blacks out. 

Daniel leans in to kiss his neck while he strokes him and Doug grabs at his shoulder desperately, his moans echoing in the bathroom. He’s slow about it, like there’s no rush and they have all the time in the world, like he wants to make Doug feel good if it’s the last thing he does. 

“Fuck, Daniel,” Doug groans as his eyes fall closed.  

“You’re beautiful too,” Daniel whispers in his ear, voice low and husky, and that’s when Doug loses it and comes with a cry. Daniel touches him through it, whispers more sweet nothings he doesn’t even catch because his whole world’s gone white hot, and it’s perfect.

 

Later, after eating way too much takeout and watching a shit movie they turned off halfway through, Doug rests his head on Daniel’s chest and traces the gunshot wound scar he spotted earlier. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he tells Daniel, and he means it. Daniel pulls him close.

“I’m glad you’re here, too.” 

Doug falls asleep thinking he’s exactly where he’s meant to be for the first time he can remember.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading! let me know if you enjoyed <3


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